THE T.V.SPIES
Mr. Bond may have been the most popular spy of the 60's, but there were dozens of other spies on television and in the movies. Everyone from Maxwell Smart to Fred Flintstone was getting into the act which just meant more music for us!
"The Man From U.N.C.L.E." ran from 1964 -1968 and spawned toys, comic books, a Girl From U.N.C.L.E. series, a fanatical following, and a couple of soundtrack LPs. Neither is an actual soundtrack, but tunes by the different composers (Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, Walter Scharf, Mort Stevens, Gerald Fried, and Robert Drasnin) re-arranged and conducted by Hugo Montenegro. While the records are scarce there are several CD incarnations. (Look for the ones with both albums on one CD as it should be).
"The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." soundtrack LP, arranged and conducted by Teddy Randazzo with tracks by Dave Grusin, Howard Shores, and Teddy Randazzo has a punchier viersion of Goldsmith's Man From U.N.C.L.E. theme and may be the best of the three LPs. It screams for a CD release.
FOUR incredible CD sets of original score music have been released by Film Score Monthly. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are two CD sets, volume 3 includes music from "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." and volume 4 is music from the U.N.C.L.E. films. Extensive liner notes as usual. Like their release of music from "I Spy", these are absolute must haves.
"The Avengers" hit America in 1965, but had been on in Britain since '62. It ran till '69 and came back as "The New Avengers" in 1976 and a feature film in 1998. There are a number of recordings to track down, but start with...
"Music Of Laurie Johnson" on The Edsel label. It's a slipcased 3cd set of the composers music compiled, annotated and mastered from the original mastertapes by Johnson himself. Disc 1 contains seventy minutes worth of music from sixteen different episodes of The Avengers.
Varese Sarabande released an Lp of Laurie Johnson with the London Studio Orchestra including the themes and several of his tunes from both the Avengers and New Avengers on one side and The Professionals on the other. The same Avenger tracks are on the Varese CD, but with other Johnson scores.
"The Rose and the Gun" is a Johnson collection with different recordings of the Avengers and New Avengers themes as well as the "tag scene" music from the Tara episodes.
An odd little remnant of the lounge music craze is "Music For TV Dinners, the 60's" which includes one Avengers cut titled "Chase That Car"...
That track and two others, "Fisticuffs" and "Lonely Stranger" can also be found on a hard to find CD from the KPM music library simply entitled "The 60s". I think these are all Johnson and the London Studio Orchestra although they are uncredited. But wait! There's more...
Johnson's original version of the theme (The Shake) can be found on a number of colections now. "The Avengers and Other Top Sixties TV Themes" is a good one as it includes a number of other TV spy themes.
Before we got the Avengers here in the U.S. with the Laurie Johnson music, Steed was running around with a couple of different partners and a different title theme. Johnny Dankworth composed the theme to the original series and you can find it on a couple of Dankworth collections if you paw through the used record bins.
As long as you're going through the bins it would be well worth hunting for the two songs recorded by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman, "Kinky Boots" and "Let's Keep It Friendly". Honor Blackman played Steed's second partner, Cathy Gale and the songs are a lot of fun. Rumor has it there's a CD out there somewhere too.
"The Avengers" (1998) (the movie) has had it's share of criticism, but one of the bright spots was the music. First there was one of those alleged "soundtracks" of pop songs they put out now with little or no connection to the film. This one however has a version of the Avengers theme done by Marius Devries which is fantastic! Then Joel Mcneely's score to the film turned out to be a wonderful surprise as well. If you didn't like the film (and you probably didn't) at least give the score a try.
Edwin Astley composed the music for both "Secret Agent" and "The Saint". The LPs are next to impossible to find and still command ridiculous prices. They are now on one CD on the Collectibles label. It's interesting to note that that "Secret Agent Man" was not the original theme for Secret Agent. The title of the show in England was "Danger Man" with a theme titled, "High Wire". (Secret Agent Man was added when the show came to America.) "Danger Man" had originally been a half hour show with an entirely different theme. Several collections have a good cover version by the Red Price Combo.
"The Saint" (1997), brought Simon Templar to the big screen and for some reason he was an American (and Val Kilmer). Be that as it may, Graeme Revell gave us a great score with hints of Astley's theme if you listen for them. (Templar's car alarm also played the theme.) Orbital provided a techno version you can find on a single and on the pop tune "soundtrack".
A tribute to not only it's being one of the best television programs ever, but it's relentless fan base is the fact that three albums of soundtrack music have been released for "The Prisoner". Silva Screen has re-released three CDs of music from "The Prisoner" to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the show. If you missed the extrememly rare Lp and the earlier hard to find Silva CD releases, this is your chance! They have also re-arranged the tracks from the earlier releases to more accurately reflect the episodes and their viewing order. Real Prisoner fanatics will want to track down volume two of the first set of CDs as it includes a track titled "The Age of Elegance" which was an early version of the show's main theme. The new set substitutes a mediocre cover version of the theme.
Real treasure hunters will want to get hold of a CD single put out by "SIX OF ONE", the Prisoner Appreciation Society. It includes "High Wire", "Dry Bones" by the Four Lads, and an almost impossible to find pop version of the Prisoner theme by Ron Grainer. One of the singles from the "Power Themes 90" collection includes three mixes of the theme by 3 To The Power with a lot of samples from the show. Pretty good!
One of the two most identifyable spy themes in the world (the other being the James Bond theme) is Lalo Schifrin's incredible "Mission Impossible" theme. Two Soundtrack albums were released in the 60's. "Mission Impossible" and "More Mission Impossible". Thankfully, they can both be found on the CD "Mission Anthology".
GNP Crescendo released a CD "The Best Of Mission Impossible Then And Now" which included music cues from the original series by Schifrin and from the 1988 revival by John E. Davis. There is also an interview with Peter Graves.
Then someone had the idea to make a "Mission Impossible" (1996) movie and make Jim Phelps the bad guy. At least we got some more music. First the pop "soundtrack, worthwhile only for a couple of versions of the theme, and then the score by Danny Elfman. A noisy action score with the Schifrin theme thrown in.
Why doesn't someone just ask Mr. Schifrin to do the score? Apparently they asked Alan Sylvestri, but didn't like his ideas. You can find his rejected score on this bootleg. Hans Zimmer took over for "Mission Impossible 2" (2000) giving us a nice action score with some beautiful guitar music to listen to while suffering through the movie. As well as the now obligatory rock compilation (there may be a version of the score with additional music).
"Mission Impossible 3" (2006) wasn't bad and Michael Giacchino's score used the theme nicely which is really all that matters.
"I Spy" (1965-1968), starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby had an original score for each of it's 82 episodes. Two-thirds composed by Earle Hagen, and one-third by Hugo Friedhofer. Hagen himself produced and recorded the first LP on the Warner Bros. label in 1966 and Capitol produced the second one in 1968. They each have different versions of the I Spy theme. A couple of the tracks are the same tune, but with different arrangements and titles. These would make a great CD package, but until then...
Film Score Monthly has released five of Hagen's original episode scores on this fantastic limited edition CD in their Silver Age Classics series. These are the original score recordings as heard in the show. Some of the themes are the tunes used for the LPs and it's great to hear them this way. As Hagen scored 53 of the shows episodes it's not to early to start pestering FSM for a volume two!
The movie version of I Spy (2002) didn't seem to use any music from the series so the less said the better.
"International Detective" (1959) on the Harkit label is one of the crossover shows that helped usher in the age of the secret agent. Although the show's theme is kind of funny, it has early Edwin Astley music that wouldn't be out of place with his Secret Agent/The Saint scores.
"Man From Interpol" (1960) helped bridge the gap from the 50's detective to the 60's spy and was the first jazz score for a British television series. This knockout score by Tony Crombie is also on the Harkit label...twice! Their first release (with the original U.S. album cover) had 30 tracks, many previously unreleased, but a few missing from the original LP. Their more recent release (with the British cover art) corrected that, but sacrificed a couple of the unreleased tracks.
"Burke's Law" (1963-65) was a cop show about a millionaire police detective driving around in a Rolls Royce solving murders so why is it included here? Because in 1965 it became "Amos Burke, Secret Agent" about a rich guy driving around in a Rolls Royce being a spy. CD release on Harkit as well.
1965 also gave us one of the greatest shows ever, "Get Smart" (1965-70). The "soundtrack" album for Get Smart was really a story with Max on a mission flashing back to sequences from the show. No music. A CD release on the Raven label has the added treat of Barbara Feldon's two songs, "Max" and "99" from an impossible to find 45. It also includes the substandard version of the theme from one of the TV Tunes disks.
However... the actual theme is included on this "Must See TV" CD. (And it's a TV Tunes production. Go figure
Even Fred Flinstone hit the big screen in "The Man Called Flintstone" (1966) with a soundtrack album that's not half bad.
Hanna Barbera put out a few other spy type albums featuring their cartoon characters like Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole in "Super Spy" and.....
"James Bomb" with Super Snooper and Blabbermouth. If you really search you can find Yogi Bear and the Three Stooges in "The Mad Mad Dr. No-No".
"Jonny Quest in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" was released on 45 and Lp. The LP has a cut titled the Johnny Quest theme with a strong James Bond influence, but I don't think it was ever used in the series.
And lest we forget... Lance Links backup band. They were featured each week in Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp". Don't know if there were other Lance Link LPs, but maybe one is already too many.
WHO IS NUMBER TWO?: The Big Screen Spies